Tips for Small Business Credit Card Processing

Customers like the ease of swiping a card to make a payment in a
store, or keying in numbers for an online purchase. It’s fast, easy and
straightforward. Whatever kind of small business you have, not giving
customers the option of using credit or debit cards can reduce your
revenue and inhibit your growth.

Check writing seems like nothing so much as a thing of the past. Some
people still carry small amounts of cash, but not the amounts needed to
make serious purchases. They tend to use credit cards for these.
Clearly, credit card processing is as important to small companies as
large ones.

Expand and Grow

Offering credit card processing – by phone, mail, email, online or
in-person – will allow your firm to expand in several ways. You can
process payments from all over the planet, and can receive funds in just
a few minutes. Businesses of all sizes can attract customers and
clients from countries around the world, and this is just one of the
important growth-oriented benefits of credit card processing.

There are lots of ways to receive and process credit and debit card
transactions and choosing the appropriate one for your business is
critical. Small firms and individuals who sell on eBay and other auction
sites like can receive payments through the PayPal service, essentially
a third-party merchant account. You can do the same on your small
business website with your products. The customer can shop there and
purchase from your site with the PayPal link. But is this the best way?

Operational Advice

Small businesses should consider applying their own merchant accounts,
and not continue using a third-party one, as soon as there is steady
business. This is really mandatory for all businesses. Small storefronts
can process payments on site with a credit card terminal, as well as
offer direct credit/debit card payments on their websites. Once you have
your own merchant account you will have many ways of implementing it,
and all reputable firms offer good assistance through their customer
service departments.

The old-fashioned payment methods have long since passed, and if you
don’t take credit cards you are seriously behind the times. You can get
excellent advice in other articles on how best to shop for and decide on
a merchant account, but there are some general tips that will help
small businesses once they start down this road:

Don’t rush into a deal. Shop around, compare rates (and all the
fees, too) and talk to colleagues and neighboring businesses about their
own experiences with both credit card sales and merchant accounts.

Once you have made your decision, get everything explained to the
nth degree. Make sure you understand your deal with the provider, and if
you have employees, bring them up to speed, too. Don’t get pressured
into a long-term contract and don’t agree to any “package deal” that
doesn’t give you the options you need for equipment, customer service
assistance and other provider support. You should not be paying extra
for normal services.

Go by the book – your book! This means writing up a manual of
procedures for everyone who will be processing credit card sales. You
need to enforce a uniformity of processing and adhere to all the rules,
and you will be getting lists of requirements from both the credit card
associations and your account provider.

Make security and safety the most important thing. Train yourself
and your employees, if you have any, how to spot fraud, whether in
person or over the Internet. Stay current on scams, read the provider’s
and credit card associations’ newsletters and bulletins, have your wits
about you and follow the established security procedures.

Basic Common Sense

You may wish to start out with a third-party provider like PayPal, but
keep track of how much business you are doing and what the service is
costing you. At some point in your growth, it will make economic and
financial sense to have your own credit card merchant account. However,
if you don’t keep (and read!) good records of sales, income, expenses
and so on, you will not be able to make this important calculation.

Therefore, one of the best tips, at the start of your credit card
journey or at any point in it, is to stay focused, informed and involved
in the process. Learn everything you can about credit card processing,
the rates and fees, the legal side of things and the illegal side, too.
Knowledge is power, in any business or undertaking, so commit yourself
to becoming as much of an expert at credit card processing as you can
be.

Final Thoughts

Of course, if you don’t think you have a “head for numbers” or find that
it is a confusing subject, by all means get help. There are two main
kinds of help to get, too. First, get all the help you can from your
account provider, making full use of the customer service department at
all times. But second, get help – from articles like this, consumer
affairs websites, small business groups, etc. – on the best ways to
approach and work with your account provider.

The relationship between a business and its merchant account provider
has two sides to it. On the one hand, the account providers want you to
do well, because more sales for you mean more income for them. On the
other hand, they have an incentive to make as much from your business as
they can, hence the different fees and changing rates. For a small
business processing credit cards, the most basic tip of all, then, is
“Look Out For Number One.”

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